face. Her eyes were wide with fright.
He fought to maintain his calm, to remain composed when he wanted to shout. “Answer my questions truthfully and it will go easier for you.”
She nodded shakily.
“Did you adulterate Mrs. Darcy’s tea this afternoon?”
She swallowed. “No — no, sir.”
He studied her so intensely for signs of prevarication that she looked as if his gaze alone might knock her down. “Did you today, or at any time, administer anything to her without her knowledge? Any substance that could harm her or make her ill?”
“No, sir — nothing like that!”
“Has anyone else done so?”
“No! At least, not that anybody told me about. No one wants to hurt Mrs. Darcy.”
“God help you if you are lying to me.”
Her shoulders trembled. “I swear to you, I am not.”
She appeared so rattled that he tended to believe her. Though she might practice duplicity when nobody watched, he doubted she could gather enough composure at present to deliver a falsehood convincingly. He relaxed his grip, but not his stance or expression.
“What did you give Mr. Wickham just now?”
“A statuette.”
“That you stole from Pemberley.”
“I’m sorry, sir. Truly—”
“
“Please don’t send me to gaol, sir!” She began to cry. “My sisters and I — we’ve got no one since our father died, and they said they would pay me well. All I had to do was keep my ears open and borrow a few things from time to time.”
Gaol was the least of the evils she faced. Though the statuette’s history rendered it priceless to him and Elizabeth, its monetary worth made its theft a transport or hanging offense for Jenny.
“What else have you taken?”
“N-Nothing, sir. Nothing I kept. I always returned the letters and such after they were finished looking at them.”
So Jenny was responsible for all the misplaced correspondence. Elizabeth would be relieved to know their son had not deprived her of her wits after all.
“Who are ‘they’?”
“Mr. Wickham and Mrs. Stanford.”
That much he had surmised. But who was the third conspirator, the one who had posed as Frederick Tilney? “Does anyone else work for or with them?”
“I do not know all their business, sir. I only do what they tell me.”
“How did you come to work for them?”
“My father owned an inn at Newcastle — the Boar’s Head. I used to help with the serving — two of my sisters still do, working for the new owner, but he couldn’t afford to keep all of us. Anyway, Mr. Wickham dines there frequently, and so did Mrs. Stanford’s captain. One night Mr. Wickham and Captain Tilney got to talking, like gentlemen do after they’ve first got to drinking. Mr. Wickham mentions that he grew up at a place called Pemberley and brags about his connections to the Darcy family. The captain says he has heard of Pemberley and the Darcys from his father, and asks all sorts of questions about the late mistress and some statuettes she might have had. I kept my mouth shut and the tankards full, but Mr. Wickham, he can’t be in a room without having his eyes on three girls at once and he noticed me listening.
“Well, then my father died and our money ran out, and after the captain’s accident Mr. Wickham comes to me and asks do I remember that conversation, and I say yes. He says he can get me a position at Pemberley if I’m willing to help with some business the captain left unfinished. I ask what kind of business and he says the statuettes are hidden someplace at Pemberley and you and Mrs. Darcy are looking for them but if we find them first I shan’t ever have to worry about money again. I say that sounds like stealing and he says the ivories really belonged to Captain Tilney, who wanted to give them to his lady except he got killed first. Nell was sick and the two littlest ones had no shoes and our landlord was at the door every day looking for his rent, so I agreed. Mr. Wickham brought me here and got me a position as a housemaid, just like he said.”
Darcy would speak to Mrs. Reynolds later to learn how Jenny had come to be hired. The housekeeper knew Wickham was not to be trusted, so some intermediary sympathetic to the former steward’s son must have brought Jenny to her attention.
“What instructions did you receive?”
“To use my access as a household servant to learn all I could about the ivories.”
“In other words, you were to spy on Mrs. Darcy and me.”
She dropped her gaze. “Yes, sir. Whenever I had news, I sent word to Mr. Wickham or Mrs. Stanford, and one of them would meet me. About a fortnight ago, Mrs. Stanford came to Lambton and has been there ever since. Mr. Wickham is there now, too.”
Captain Tilney’s mistress had probably come directly after Darcy had seen her in Newcastle, his visit having inadvertently alerted her to developments in his and Elizabeth’s own investigations. Under different circumstances, Darcy might have appreciated the irony of Mrs. Stanford being at Pemberley whilst he traveled the country searching for her.
“Where do they go now?”
“I do not know for certain, sir, but I think Northanger Abbey. When nothing turned up in the marigold beds last night after all of Mr. Wickham’s digging, they said something about Mrs. Tilney’s garden.”
Wickham had violated the flower beds. He had suspected as much. “What can you tell me about the quilt in the nursery?”
She looked up quickly. Guilt flashed across her features. “I feel terrible about that, sir. Truly I do! It was such a pretty quilt. But after I told them what Mrs. Darcy said, about it maybe holding a clue, and then finding nothing in the garden with the marigolds, they insisted I see whether something was sewn inside. I didn’t want to rip it apart, but they were terribly ugly about it. They said ‘in for a penny, in for a pound,’ and that I was already involved so deeply in their scheme that they had only to snitch to you and it would be Botany Bay for me.” Her chin trembled again. “Please, sir — you won’t send me to gaol, will you?”
Darcy, having experienced firsthand the horrors of gaol, could not lightly subject anybody to such an ordeal. Yet Jenny’s offenses, particularly the theft of his mother’s statuette, were grave.
“I shall have to give the matter further consideration. In the meantime, I will place you in the custody of Mr. Clarke.” The steward would ensure Jenny was closely watched until Darcy could devote attention to her fate.
Just now, there was another woman at Pemberley whose welfare concerned him far more.
“I dare say we could do very well without you; but you men think yourselves of such consequence.”
Mrs. Bennet waylaid Darcy en route to the bedchamber.
“Oh, Mr. Darcy, is it not exciting? Lizzy is brought to bed! I knew she was too fat to last another fortnight! But I do not believe my nerves can bear the waiting. Thank heaven the doctor is come — though he would not let me stay in the birthing room. Something about hearing himself think.”
The news of Dr. Severn’s arrival was most welcome. Darcy had not wanted to leave Elizabeth entirely in Mrs.
